It is Easter and the streets of Bendigo are alive with pageantry and fanfare as the 2016 instalment of The Bendigo Easter Festival has arrived. The eight-metre-high statue of Marilyn, to many a questionable, albeit short-lived addition to the town’s sprawling urban landscape, seems a strangely, befitting totem-like homage amongst the carnival atmosphere that has gathered at her feet.
It is the crowd that first intimates this year’s Festival has a different feel from the last few previous editions. While it has been well documented that attendance numbers have been in decline over the past decade, it is the mass of people strolling amicably within Bendigo’s central business district that catches the eye. There is movement everywhere. Couples, worker’s, families with strollers. Walking and talking, laughing without a care in the world.
Above the incessant hum that brings an exciting buzz to the city, music can be heard emanating from buskers and street performers, live bands and small orchestras. Megaphones throw voices amongst all the cacophony, adding an ambience as a circus ringleader would.
The local business fraternity as if predicting such an overwhelming influx of people, have thrown open their doors and through shop front windows it is easy to see that patronage is high and business owners are eagerly assisting customers hoping to procure a large portion of the tourist and local holiday dollars on offer. What adds to this hyper-inflated capitalist scenario are the many small street traders plying their wares amongst the vast array of stalls that have appeared overnight in and around Rosalind Park. A small walk amongst them and the sensory organs are hit with smells and sounds and visuals that collaborate to ignite the festival spirit that had supposedly been consigned to the annals of history. The buzz is one of genuine excitement. It seems unusual to align Bendigo with such a family orientated carnival atmosphere but it is noticeable nonetheless.
Watching the brass bands play their pomp, seeing the joy and smiles on children’s faces whether it be on the latest high tech ride, playing ping pong at the pop up Fun Zone, or simply interacting with farm animals in the petting zoo, one cannot help but begin to feel a sense of wellbeing in these surroundings. Whether a local or visitor, Bendigo has managed to surprise many with this latest edition of the Bendigo Easter Festival and one cannot help but hope that the formula the planning committee have produced for all to see becomes the foundation for guaranteed success in the future.